Wednesday, May 23, 2012

You're about as easy as a nuclear war...

If "terrorists" (presumably of the generic Islamic/Middle Eastern variety) are the boogeymen of today, Russians or "Commies" (they were interchangeable) were the scary evil villains of my eighties childhood. Cold War paranoia was everywhere in the eighties. It showed up in films like WarGames, Red Dawn, White Nights, Rocky IV, and Invasion USA; made for TV movies like The Day After and Testament (I saw that last one as a kid and it scared the holy hell out of me), and especially pop music. Some of the more famous examples of this are Nena's "99 Luftballoons," Sting's "Russians," Prince's "1999," Weird Al's (awesome) "Christmas At Ground Zero," Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Two Tribes," The Smith's "Ask," Duran Duran's "Planet Earth," "Generals and Majors" by XTC, and this classic by Ultravox:

Some of the awesomeness in this video:

00:33 -- This fellow can only muster mild disappointment at the prospect of a nuclear meltdown. "Oh bollocks, I'll miss EastEnders!"

01:19 -- Newsflash: Nuclear Explosion Imminent (on an ATM screen?)

01:36 -- FUCK!!!!

01:57 -- What's with the framed American flag in Midge Ure's apartment? Dude, you're British! (Is he a Yankophile? Is there such a thing?)

02:12 -- Wall-mounted turntable?

02:29 -- Aw, come on. Just when things couldn't get more tragic, they gotta throw in a cute kid!

02:40 -- Might as well get it on while we still can. (You randy Brits!)

Friday, May 04, 2012

God, how could I not love this video? It's adorable, sweet, and chock full of cats! Purring cats, growling cats, meowing cats, cats whizzing their tits off on catnip. I can even overlook the horrid '90s fashions and awful hairstyles because, well, CATS!

Also? I reject the term "cat lady." It's often prefaced by "crazy" and generally used in a mocking and derogatory way, with queasy misogynistic undertones. Fuck that. I am not a "cat lady."